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The Boys: Why McElligott Passed on Queen Maeve Return for Final Run

The Boys creator/showrunner Eric Kripke explains why Dominique McElligott didn't return as Queen Maeve for the show's final season run.

Any time you have a series as epic as The Boys, there will always be callbacks to previous seasons, and creator and showrunner Eric Kripke was hoping to save an original cast member of the series for a return in the fifth and final season. Unfortunately, that never materialized, as Kripke tried to keep the character's memory alive throughout subsequent seasons in case the actor had a change of heart. He spoke to TV Insider about holding out as long as he could for Dominique McElligott in hopes of reprising her role as Queen Maeve/Maggie Shaw after she left the series after season three, and why it never happened despite the best of intentions.

The Boys Creator Eric Kripke on Staying in Contact with Dominique McElligott and Why Maeve's Return Never Happened

As Jensen Ackles' Soldier Boy made his series debut in season three, his supe-neutralizing beam from his chest was a game-changer, able to neutralize the compound V in any supe's system, even the original V1 incarnation. Unfortunately, Soldier Boy's allegiances often shifted from Vought to The Boys, and back to Vought with his son Homelander (Antony Starr). After Homelander finally achieved his dream of getting V1, thanks to his father, Soldier Boy wanted nothing else to do with him so Homelander choked him out and put him back into cryosleep, taking him out of the picture for the finale, to which Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) became the test subject using nuclear radiation to become the new secret anti-supe weapon, thanks to the efforts of Frenchie (Tomer Capone) and Sister Sage (Susan Heyward).

When we last left Maeve, she lost her powers after falling from Vought Tower in the blast of Soldier Boy's beam, losing her right eye in the process, but gaining a normal life, being able to live in peace with her girlfriend, Elena (Nicola Correia-Damude). Vought's media machine, despite Maeve's defection, kept her hero legacy alive, claiming she was lost in the line of duty. "Dom and I email a couple of times every six to eight months or so, and she checked in on me after the Palisades fires," Kripke said. "We throw each other emails, and I said very early because I wanted to know whether we were building for it, 'Would you be open to coming back for a day, and here are the dates.'"

Unfortunately, McElligott wouldn't commit, "And it was very pleasant and respectful, she just said, 'I've kind of retired from acting. [I'm not] really acting anymore, and I'm busy those dates anyway,'" Kripke said, adding he wanted to keep "Maeve's spirit alive" in season five. "So, that was honestly it. It was a very pleasant, non-controversial moment, you know? But we wanted to pay homage to her; she's an important character, and so she shows up in the recap and in a way to show that Maeve passed the torch to Annie, and now Annie is passing the torch to Marie, and that there's this lineage of strong women that started with Maeve."

Maeve, a parody of DC's Wonder Woman, was one of the most respected members of The Seven, but that came with a price in the form of substance abuse, given the trauma from the evils of Vought and its herald champion, Homelander, which includes the infamous Flight 37 that saw all on board killed, in part due to his temper, before flying off and forcing Maeve to do the same. Maeve would help The Boys during their confrontation with Stormfront/Clara (Aya Cash), who became desperate after she was exposed as a Nazi online.

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